We love pizza. We love muffaletta. We decided they probably would be easy to love together. So we decided to combine them.

In honor of Mardi Gras, we created a muffaletta flatbread, a basic thin-crust pizza topped with all the classic ingredients of New Orleans’ beloved muffaletta sandwich. We start with a red pepper pesto blended from roasted bell peppers, capers and toasted walnuts. We then top that with an olive and cherry pepper blend, then finally sliced salami and provolone cheese.

We’ve given the classic crumb bar a holiday-worthy makeover with the addition of ground cloves. Not only do cloves sport a taste and aroma perfect for the season, they also pair wonderfully with the apricot preserve filling. But feel free to mix it up.

Just about any preserve could be substituted. Cherry, peach or fig would be particularly good.

If you can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and fry an egg, you already have all the skills needed to make this incredible Christmas morning stuffed French toast.

We start with cinnamon swirl bread and make sandwiches using cream cheese spiked with dried cranberries and crystalized ginger. Dunk the sandwiches in eggs blended with cinnamon and a bit more ginger, then toss them in the pan. But don’t forget the maple syrup!

Chicken potpie is a fine, comforting dinner for most of the winter. But at Christmas, you want a dinner that’s as special as it is comforting.

So we used the model of a basic puff pastry-topped chicken potpie, but substituted tender sirloin tips for the poultry. Add a creamy beef gravy and you end up with a savory potpie that is the perfect casual, comforting, special meal.

A dessert this great is worth the wait. A rich, creamy custard with caramelized sugar is topped with sugared rolled oats and dried cranberries that take a long bath in apple brandy.

Though the recipe comes together easily, the first step begins the day before. Just dump the dried cranberries in a bowl with the Calvados, then go on with your life.

By the time the cranberries are ready the next day, you’ve got just an hour of work left. Just be sure to let the flans cool completely before trying to unmold; they slip out of the ramekins more easily when cool.

The turkey may be the centerpiece, but a classic Thanksgiving dinner simply isn’t complete without a bevy of traditional sides. To accompany our cider-brined bird, we went with a gently sweet cranberry sauce cooked with peaches for a delicate texture and fruitiness to balance the tart berries. For the mashed potatoes, we kept it basic — sour cream, butter and chives — but delicious.

And because you can never have enough carbs at Thanksgiving (Stuffing! Mashed potatoes! Rolls! Cranberry sauce!), we added a second variety of potatoes — herb-crusted sweet potatoes.

If you are going to go to the (admittedly little) trouble of brining your Thanksgiving turkey, be sure to set the bar higher than simply adding moisture. Granted, this is the primary goal of a brine. Soaking the bird in a salty solution prior to roasting, does help plump the meat and keep it moist during cooking.

These simple, yet elegant individual tarts are at once surprisingly sweet and satisfyingly savory. It’s thanks to the wonderful interplay between the naturally sweet carrots and lemon juice, and the herby thyme and sage.

The tarts also are a wonderfully refreshing way to serve carrots, which too often end up just steamed and buttered. And because these tarts are delicious warm or at room temperature, they are an easy do-ahead item. If you’d like to save a little time, you could use purchased pastry dough.

Because if the mashed potatoes aren’t truly wonderful, you’re going to have some seriously upset children at the table. Which is to say, this isn’t the time to experiment by spiking them with blue cheese or a 50-50 ratio of garlic to potato, or to test whether mashed cauliflower really does taste just like the real thing.

This is the time to make wonderfully fluffy, buttery, salty, peppery, delicious mashed potatoes.